Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series
TSport 200 Qualifying | Friday, August 11, 2023
TY MAJESKI DRIVES F-150 TO FIRST TRUCK SERIES WIN OF SEASON IN PLAYOFF OPENER AT LUCAS OIL INDIANAPOLIS RACEWAY PARK
- Ty Majeski helped Ford to its fifth NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series victory of 2023.
- Majeski led 179 of 200 laps, completing a sweep of the race after wins in the first two stages.
- This is Majeski’s first victory and second Top-10 in two appearances at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park.
Ford Finishing Results:
1st – Ty Majeski
5th – Zane Smith
9th – Matt Crafton
16th – Ben Rhodes
21st – Logan Bearden
27th – Conner Jones
31st – Hailie Deegan
TY MAJESKI, No. 98 Road Ranger Ford F-150 – WHAT DOES THIS WIN MEAN FOR YOU AND THE TEAM? “We didn’t win last week, and the message coming back is that we win and lose as a team, right? The speeding penalty and then obviously missed the strategy, and these guys crawled behind us, right? When you give races away like that, it’s how you recover from them. This team is really resilient. We have a good group around us. We assembled a good group, and I love working with Joe [Shear Jr.]. We’ve had a lot of fun. We’re just a couple of short track guys having fun on the NASCAR stage. It’s pretty cool.”
THE RESTARTS, ESPECIALLY FROM THE TOP, SEEMED TO BE A MAJOR CONTRIBUTING FACTOR TO YOUR VICTORY. “Yeah, you know the track had less grip than last year. Last year, the bottom was working well for me. I could get it turned and get it rotated off the bottom well. But, this year there was just a lack of grip. We were six, seven tenths off all night, and it just took a little bit of a different restart strategy to maintain the lead. I just threw a pretty good bomb there on that one restart and was able to cross them over – clear sailing.”
YOU WON BOTH STAGES AND RECEIVED MAXIMUM POINTS. WHAT KIND OF STATEMENT IS THIS INTO THE PLAYOFFS? “We’re peaking at the right time. This is exactly when we peaked last year, and it looks like we’re trending in the same direction. Hopefully this is just the start of our playoff run. We want to go and win Milwaukee, right? That’s my home race. Go win Kansas. We’ve had great trucks at all those places. Obviously, Milwaukee we’re going back to for the first time but Kansas, it’s been a good track for us. Bristol and Homestead we’ve won, and Phoenix we’re in the mix to the end. That’s the end goal. Hopefully we can get Road Ranger, Soda Sense and all our supporters back to Phoenix. That would be pretty special.”
ZANE SMITH, No. 38 Boot Barn Ford F-150 – “We came to our truck right before the race and had a flat right-rear before we even got going. We knew we were going to have to fight through some adversity before we even got going, but proud of our night. Our pit crew did an awesome job on our Boot Barn Ford. We experienced positive changes and worse changes throughout the night, but was happy there somewhat during that final run. Just wish we would have fired off a little better to maintain our track position. I wish we wouldn’t have fallen off so hard there at the very end. It’s the long pursuit of never being perfect. We’ll work on it. It was still a solid run of keeping our short track streak of good finishes alive.”
MATT CRAFTON, No. 88 Generac/Menards Ford F-150 – “We just couldn’t fire off. We were really bad on the short run. The first run, we were battling and good on the short run. But as the night went on, we were just really bad on the short run, and then in the long run we were actually pretty good. I just wish we had about another 30 laps to go because we were running that group down in front of us pretty quickly. But all-in-all, not a terrible night. Top-10 is okay. I definitely had a little bit of a better truck if we had a longer run.”
